"UFC 97: Redemption" offers second chance for Denis Kang

Imagine you have a desk job and, on your day off, you break your ankle. Think about how long it would be before you’d be back at your desk. Then think about how many of the company softball games you’ll miss. Or how many weeks you may miss in the company’s bowling league.

It’s almost inconceivable you’d be able to run the bases in three weeks, let alone fight someone.

Yet Denis Kang (31-11-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC) made his highly anticipated debut in the Ultimate Fighting Championship at UFC 93 in Dublin, Ireland, not long after fracturing his left ankle.

He fractured his ankle on the first day of training in December 2008 for his fight with Alan Belcher (14-5 MMA, 5-3 UFC), and he struggled to get three weeks of camp in before the fight.

His performance was less than what was expected of a guy who for years has been regarded among the world’s finest middleweights – Belcher submitted Kang with a guillotine choke in the second round – but do you think it might have had something to do with that gimpy ankle?

Kang wouldn’t say it because he didn’t want to take anything away from Belcher. But be serious: How strong could the ankle have been after he broke it, took two weeks off and then was in a fight three weeks later?

“I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t want to pull out of a fight, no matter what,” Kang said. “If there is a way I can fight, I’ll fight.

“Anyone who fights for a living knows you really never are healthy in a fight. My right hand has been broken three times. You should see what I’ve gone through with that. It looks like a lump of flesh and bones. You do what you have to do. Injuries are part of it.”

Kang will be healthy – or as reasonably close to it as he can expect to be – when he meets Xavier Foupa-Pokam (20-9 MMA, 0-0 UFC) at UFC 97 on April 18 at the Bell Centre in Montreal.

And after disappointing just about everyone who watched him in his UFC debut, he hopes to show why his arrival in the UFC was so ballyhooed.

He’d compiled a 31-10-1 record fighting all over the world and developed a reputation as a top-flight grappler.

About a half-hour after Anderson Silva had annihilated Rich Franklin at UFC 77 in Cincinnati, the second time in a year he’d knocked the Ohio-native out, and essentially cleaned out the division, it appeared to those in attendance that there were very few men in the UFC who could compete on anything close to even terms with “The Spider.”

Light heavyweight Stephan Bonnar, who fought on that card, said that night of Silva, “The guy is awesome.” Heavyweight Tim Sylvia called him “first class.”

The division seemed to lack depth, though UFC president Dana White insisted to anyone who would listen that it actually was deep but that Silva was so much better than the rest of the pack that he made the field seem barren.

Kang is highly regarded enough that he was seen as one of the few men outside of the UFC who might even be able to push Silva. He’s a long way from a title shot now, with an 0-1 record in the UFC, but Kang is eager to give UFC fans a glimpse of the talent that had gotten so many so excited about his arrival in North America.

He was disappointed by his performance in his fight against Belcher and wants to leave a different impression this time around. He’s excited, too, because he lives in Montreal and doesn’t have to travel to get to the fight.

“There’s no jet lag, I can sleep in my own bed, I will have my own food, all of that,” Kang said. “I have some UFC experience now and this will be Xavier’s first time, so I think it’s a bit of an advantage for me, too.

“Every fighter always wants to perform well, and I’m no different, but in this fight, I have a little extra incentive. I hope to be able to show my skills in this fight.”

It would help quite a bit if he’d just manage to avoid breaking bones between now and the time he hits the cage, because no matter how great of an athlete you are, broken bones and fighting don’t mix.

Kevin Iole is the national boxing/MMA writer for Yahoo! Sports. This story originally appeared on Yahoo! Sports and is syndicated on MMAjunkie.com as part of a content-partnership deal between the two sites.

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